50th Anniversary of Susan Schnall’s January 31, 1969 Court Martial for Resisting the American War in Vietnam

This interview with
Veterans For Peace member Susan Schnall about her 1968 war resistance while on
active duty as a Navy nurse was first published in the Winter 2018 edition of
the VFP Newsletter.

Veterans For Peace: When
you joined up with the Navy, where were you at in terms of consciousness?

Susan Schnall: I
was already against U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia, but I thought that I
would be taking care of the guys who were wounded, get them better and back to
their lives. It took only a short time for me to realize that once I was in the
Navy, I was a part of the military machine causing death and destruction. I had
become part of that killing force that enabled the U.S. to continue the war.

VFP: How many years
were you in?

SS: Two years active
duty. I was enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Stanford
University when I joined. After graduation I went to Officers’ Indoctrination
School in Newport, Rhode Island, for new nurses who were going to be serving in
the Navy. It was a very frightening experience for me. I realized then that the
military had complete control over my life. While I was there, Naval
Intelligence interrogated me about my activism. Apparently a classmate had told
the Navy that I was going to peace demonstrations. I told them that I was
against U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. They sent a letter back to Naval
Intelligence in Washington, saying, We’ve interviewed her, she’s not a threat
to the U.S. military. They sent me on to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, in Oakland,
California.

VFP: And then you
became more active, obviously, leading up to this event, when you decided
to—was that your idea, to do that leafletting?

SS: It was. I was at
a meeting for the Medical Committee for Human Rights in San Francisco. There
were two men in uniform who were organizing for the GI and Veterans March for
Peace in San Francisco. I thought this event was something I’d like to get
involved with. A group of us from Oak Knoll handed out flyers for the
demonstration on the hospital base. We put up posters that were torn down
almost immediately. Oak Knoll was an old hospital, built during WWII for the
marines wounded in the Pacific. The hospital units were composed of long,
wooden barracks, built up on stilts because of the hilly land. I knew we had to
do something else to get out information about the demonstration to active-duty
personnel. At that time, the U.S. was dropping flyers on the Vietnamese,
telling them to go to “protective hamlets” to ensure their safety. I thought,
if the U.S. could do this in Southeast Asia, why couldn’t we drop peace flyers
on the U.S. military? I had a friend who had a pilot’s license. We filled a
plane with the flyers about the march, and dropped them on five military
installations in the San Francisco Bay Area: Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, Treasure
Island, Yerba Buena Island, the Presidio, and on the deck of the USS Ranger, an
aircraft carrier that was docked at Alameda Naval Air Station. At the court
martial there was testimony from a serviceman from Oak Knoll who said that he
saw the plane, and that we were headed in the direction of Alameda Naval Air
Station. He called to warn them. And the guys from Alameda said, “Oh no, nobody
would dare enter our air space.” A few minutes later, we were there.

VFP: Do you feel
lucky that you weren’t shot down?

SS: Oh absolutely,
yes. When we were flying into Alameda Air Station, the pilot, my friend Bill
Gray, asked me to look out the window on my side and let him know whether there
were any fighter jets coming at us. My response: “Bill, by the time I see them,
we’re dead.” We were very lucky, yes.

VFP: And very ballsy,
I have to say…. I’m curious about what happened on the ground. Has anyone
ever come up to you and said, I was on this or that base, and I got one of
those flyers…?

SS: No.

VFP: But the march
was well attended?

SS: The march was
well attended. It was October, 1968. I had been very concerned about the
antiwar organizations I would work with. I didn’t want to be used as a member
of the military, and I was impressed with the two airmen who spoke at the MCHR
meeting. Second Lt. Hugh Smith and Airman First Class Michael Locks were
articulate and passionate about their opposition to the United States war in
Southeast Asia. Hugh walked in the demonstration and spoke; Michael and I wore
our uniforms and spoke.

VFP: So you were
charged for that, and also for dropping the leaflets from the plane?

SS: I faced two
charges: (1) Violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 133,
Conduct Unbecoming an Officer, for dropping flyers on military bases that were
designed to promote disloyalty and disaffection among members of the Armed
Forces; and (2) Disobeying a Navy Regulation (ALNAV 53) by wearing my uniform
when speaking out publicly and participating in a demonstration that was in the
furtherance of political views. This regulation was issued by the commanding
officer of Oak Knoll on October 11, the day after we distributed the flyers
from the plane. At the court martial I stated that, in fact, these acts raised
morale among the troops who felt that they were not alone in their opposition
to the war and could act, even when a member of the military. I had raised
morale. I also said that when our government is committing genocide, we have a
responsibility to speak out.

VFP: That’s the
Nuremberg principles.

SS: Exactly. But the
judge at the court martial said he was not qualified to judge it, and so he
sent this issue on to the appeal process.

VFP: What finally
happened? Did you actually serve time?

SS: I was found
guilty of both charges and sentenced to “forfeiture of pay and allowances for
six months, six months confinement at hard labor, and dismissal from the Navy.”
But at the time there was a general Navy regulation that said if a woman
received a sentence under a year, she didn’t necessarily have to serve it. So
they sent me back to work.

VFP: And that was
because—

SS: The government
didn’t want a martyr. We thought that the court martial decision actually came
from Washington to give the appearance of a sentence as a warning to other
active duty military personnel.

VFP: It seems to me
going against the first amendment that a member of the military can’t speak
out.

SS: Yes, but as a
member of the the military you are held to the Uniform Code of Military
Justice, not civilian justice or rights. You can give your life for your
country, but not speak out.

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Toward an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam

Mission statement

The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam — which is now approaching a series of 50th anniversary events. It represents a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize the Vietnam war and to thereby legitimize further unnecessary and destructive wars.

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50 Years of Resistance In & Out Of Uniform

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Philip Jones Griffiths’ Viet Nam

This Month in History: 1969

February First trial of draft resistors known as the Buffalo 9. Around 150 University of Buffalo students and faculty picket the U.S. Courthouse, chanting “Free the Nine — The Trial’s a Crime”. Defendants argue that it was necessary to resist an “immoral, illegal, racist, politically insane war on the Vietnamese people.” Charges include assaulting federal officers, as well as draft evasion. The jury is unable to reach a verdict on several of the defendants but Bruce Beyer is convicted and receives a three-year sentence. Beyer later goes to Canada and then Sweden to help organize fellow resistors and deserters.

February Fort Gordon – Pfc. Dennis Davis editor of (the antiwar newspaper) Last Harass) is given an undesirable discharge.

February 14 The first three of 27 Gls charged with mutiny at the Presidio are found guilty and sentenced to 14, 15, and 16 years at hard labor by a court martial at the San Francisco Presidio stockade (see entry for October 14, 1968). By this time, three of those charged (Blake, Mather, and Pawlowski) had escaped to Canada. On appeal, the long sentences for mutiny were voided by the Court of Military Review in June 1970, and reduced to short sentences for willful disobedience of a superior officer. Rowland, for example, was released in 1970 after a year and a half imprisonment. See The Unlawful Concert by Fred Gardner for a fuller description of the case, as well as entry for October 14, 1968.

February 20 Tacoma – the Shelter Half coffee house’s business license is revoked. See October 1968 entry.

February 22-23 NLF attack 110 targets throughout South Vietnam, including Saigon.

February 25 36 U.S. Marines are killed by NVA (PAVN or VPA) who raid their base camp near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

2016 National Book Award Finalist, Viet Thanh Nguyen:

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory . . . . Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.”